ThinkPad X1 Carbon (6th Gen) Owners Lounge

Hi guys,

Happy owner here.
Starting this thread to discuss anything related with the 6th Gen X1 Carbon.

 

Guess I'll start with a request. If anyone knows an authorized shop in Glasgow able to change my keyboard to US ANSI without voiding my warranty please let me know (nice Scottish people please don't get mad at me. My problem is exclusively with ISO keyboards).

 

Thanks for starting this. Any idea on how to get discounts, and also are the three configurations they show on their site truly the only builds they will sell you? I want the 1080 screen (prefer battery life to higher resolution, and the 16 Gig RAM, 1 TB SSD, but they only have that in the higher res screen.

 

Hi @jefflackey, where are you buying it? Here in the UK you can customize your build: https://www3.lenovo.com/gb/en/laptops/thinkpad/x-series/ThinkPad-X1-Carbon-6th-Gen/p/22TP2TXX16G. If you really want the simple FHD screen just select the first model and upgrade memory / SSD (just keep in mind that the price will be almost the same as the WQHD HDR version).

If you are in the US I'm not sure if / when Lenovo will allow you to customize your laptop. However you may find third party sellers that can do it for you. I've sent an email to @Ted@HIDevolution asking about the X1 Carbon but he hasn't replied to me yet. Maybe you should ask around in the forum (shouldn't be hard to find a sales rep for Lenovo in the US).

About discounts: Lenovo just had a President's Day Sale. You may also want to ask your Employer if he has an agreement (or wants to make an agreement) with Lenovo. You can easily save 10% + with a business discount.

 

@Anthony Accioly thanks for the reply. Yes, buying in the U.S. - never thought of 3rd party sellers so good idea, I'll check with them.

 

Here are all the model numbers. Seems like they are rolling them out/allowing "customization" regionally. You might try calling Lenovo phone sales and giving them one of the model numbers outside the three on the web site and see what happens.

http://psref.lenovo.com/syspool/Sys/i_pdf/ThinkPad_X1_Carbon_(6th_Gen)_US.pdf

 

Thanks, very helpful.

 

You'd need an entirely new laptop to change the keyboard.

What you can do is return it and buy a new one.

To avoid restocking fee, you can pretend the laptop has multiple issues. But I believe in EU you don't have restocking fee.

 

Are you sure? I'm just asking because I found hardware / service manuals for older generation machines with full instructions on how to replace the keyboard.

Unfortunately Lenovo UK does not sell laptops with US / ANSI keyboards and third party sellers wouldn't accept my business discount .

 

The issue is that entire top panel has the keyboard layout cut into it.

To replace the keyboard means to replace the bottom chassis (not the panel).

 

Thats one of the advantages of models like the X280 or T480s compared with the X1 Carbon, their keyboards are still user-replaceable.

 

I see... That's a bummer .

Other than the ISO layout this keyboard is a dream to type on. Easily the best laptop keyboard that I've owned this decade.

Fortunately I have a Topre at home and a Filco Majestouch-2 Silent at work.

Still, my brain has been completely hardwired to ANSI and I keep hitting the wrong keys while trying to type on the go.

Any reason why Lenovo doesn't sell ANSI layout keyboards in Europe? There's all sorts of keyboards available, including Arabic https://www3.lenovo.com/gb/en/lapto...1-Carbon-6th-Gen/p/20KHCTO1WWENGB1/customize? .

I can't be the only guy used to ANSI keyboards (even Apple allows me to order Macbook Pros with US / English keyboard layout).

 

Just return it for the time being tbh.

 

Is it just me, or is it impossible to select the 1080p screen, and 16gb of ram?

 

Depends on the country. Anyway, soon third party sellers will join the party. Lenovo will have to allow people to customise SKUs or they are going to lose business.

 

Are CTO models even up for order yet? @Punchdrunk


Join the Thinkpad discord channel: https://discord.gg/mGWNsaN (someone put this on the 1st page).

 

Hello, I'm Korean. This is my first time getting Thinkpad, so I am little bit nervous waiting for my order. People here have not been as fond of Thinkpads as domestic
manufacturers such as Samsung and LG would have better deal. There are people like me preferring Apple though.
Looking for best keyboard , I decided to get one after googling hundreds of reviews. I am an writer, not an engineer or gamer. Getting this instead of T480 is only because of it's weight.
Getting 6th gen instead of 5th gen is because the former's keyboard travel is deeper than the latter according to Laptopmag review.
Do you think it's right decision?

 

Hi Ray, welcome to the owners lounge. Don't worry, buyer's anxiety is definitely a thing. Soon your X1 will arrive and you will be able to judge by yourself (if it's not up to the standards you can always return it).

Anyway, just to reassure you, the keyboard is amazing. IMO it's way better than Apple's butterfly switches. I would give a 9.5 out of 10 to this keyboard (It loses 0.5 points due to the Fn Key Placement).

Just like you said the T480 is cheaper and easier to upgrade. It can have a dedicated graphics card and a second battery but it's heavier and the display is not as good as the X1. For your requirements it sounds like the X1 Carbon is the right machine.

The 5th Gen X1 Carbon is also a really nice machine that could handle writing tasks very well. I can't really say anything about its keyboard, but in general most TPs have very good keyboards, and the X1 is no exception.

To be honest I've ended up returning my X1C (as a software developer, ANSI keyboard layout is a huge deal for me). But I've liked it so much that I'm planning to buy the exact same machine again on my next trip to Canada.

I'm not a ThinkPad fanboy (as in, this is the first "Lenovo" ThinkPad that I ever owned), but I really loved the X1C. Hopefully you will also enjoy yours once it arrives.

 

If you want good keyboard then you should look at the T430 with quadcore upgrade and keyboard swap to 7-row. This is the most economical option for you.


The 7-row classic keyboard also has the deepest travel out of any keyboards for Thinkpad device up to date.

 

I also forgot to mention that the screen option on the T430 is cancer.

 

Buy does it come with the blue enter key (If you are going to go retro I want the full experience )? Is Lenovo still even selling the T430?

 

buy used

I got mine off a university trash dump, literally brand new on the exterior but no cd drive/hdd

 

I still miss my father's IBM ThinkPad 240x keyboard (circa 2000 model). If I'm not mistaken the keyboards for this model were made in Scotland. I basically learned how to type in this thing while playing RuneScape "Classic". Back in the day I used to play RuneScape in Netscape / Sun JVM (dog slow). Then Jagex released music / sound exclusively for the Microsoft JVM. I swithed to Internet Explorer until Microsoft settled the lawsuit with Sun an discontinued their JVM. MSJVM was much more responsive than Sun's JVM back in the day. It could get the best of the Pentium III in the ThinkPad (Fun fact: Java Applets could stress my father's computer while StarCraft played "smoothly")... For the first time I could actually read the text messages that I was typing in real time: I probably managed to type over 100 WPM for the first time writing things like: @cya@Selling Rune Kiteshield 100k! -- Duff Fw --

It may be due to nostalgic memories, but to me this is the best laptop keyboard ever made. I would love to be able to fit one of those keyboards in a modern ThinkPad.

 

There is the Thinkpad 25 but it has nvidia gpu which doesn't play well with power efficiency and linux, the CPU is outdated last generation without vpro, bad screen, and shallower keyboard with different texture compared to the old 7-row.


Didn't know that the older non-lenovo era keyboards were made outside of china though.

 

Yeah, I've bought my P650HS a few months before the Special Anniversay Edition and missed this one. However, I guess you are right, the build quality is not the same.
About the keyboard: My father actually imported this laptop from The US, but I found and article saying that they were assembled in Scotland (
https://www.theguardian.com/technol...hich-thinkpad-laptops-have-the-best-keyboards) I may be wrong though. The only thing that I'm sure about is that this keyboard was really nice.

 

Emotional factor is always one of the most important factors to me. That's the selling point which many companies take advantage of too.
Even aware of this, I can't help myself resisting to buy one though. I'm planning to buy SNES these days.

 

You are right. The funny thing is that I haven't considered buying a ThinkPad until very recently. To me it was an "old man's work computer". I had Clevo Machines for the past 5 years. A Macbook Pro and a Macbook White before that, and some crapbooks before that.

Now I think that I'm beginning to appreciate the good things in life (getting old myself maybe?).

I definitely have some buyers remorse about the P650HS. While I haven't returned it (despite initial temp problems and the fact that everytime that it goes to sleep it is like playing Russian Roulette) I really feel stuck with it regardless of its great hardware. However, while I have a good share of great memories about the Macbooks (the Macbook White was a gift from my wife), I wouldn't buy a Macbook Pro with a Haswell processor or anything with a touchbar.

That's why I'm going through the effort of buying the same ThinkPad twice (with a Global guarantee... Next time that my computer refuses to wake up from sleep I want a Lenovo guy knocking at my door. Having to ship your computer to a different country for repairs is not a good experience at all, if you need the machine it basically feels like being taken hostage).

 

That's interesting.
Though the article does mention "equivalent ibm facilities," so I would reckon there's multiple suppliers for the keyboard alone.

From the teardown on 51nb, the TP25 basically just a T470 with a different top cover and 7-row keyboard. Even the motherboard is the same! That's why a deeper key travel wasn't possible.

If you have the money to burn then go ahead with the TP25, though it isn't a true "retro" experience. Only overpriced gouging of subpar item equipped with a non original feel lookalike keyboard.

Where did you buy the P650HS from? If you are in the EU/UK and didn't buy from Obsidian PC, I wouldn't even bother keeping the laptop tbh.

 

Bought from HIDevolution (mainly for the PREMA Bios that, AFAIK has not even been released). My plan is too turn this laptop into a "Deskbook": Use the P650HS as server / media center and the ThinkPad for real work. With Moonlight / game stream I can easily cast games to my Nvidia Shield or even the ThinkPad. I would happily sell the P650HS for a Desktop with a GTX 1070, same amount of RAM and a fast SSD, but considering today's prices I guess than I'm sitting on it for a while. It works pretty well if I have it plugged-in with sleep / hibernation and USB suspension disabled.

 

If you buy from hidevolution then create a thread complaining about the temps on the clevo subsection.

AFAIK hidevo advertises their clevos with good thermals so you should demand free repair.

 

Temps have actually improved after I contacted HIDevolution tech support (If I can remember correctly Zoltan has updated the BIOS and "reset" the fan speed table). The main problem with my laptop nowadays is that it often wakes up to a black screen, or even worse, wakes up, works for a few seconds and then gives me a BSOD - Video Scheduler Internal Error - with a loud noise.

@Phoenix was sure that this is a driver problem, but after several troubleshooting sessions and two full Windows reinstalls he, understandable, gave up (although I never understood why he decided to disappear and completely ignore me after that).

I've later installed Linux and although the problem happens less often, my computer often fails to wake up with Linux as well.

Anyway, even if I could stay several weeks without a computer (I can't), my guarantee has probably expired already.

I'm not even mad with HIDevolution (nor Phoenix). I guess that they tried to help me to the best of their abilities... But I've learned 3 important lessons from what happened:

1. My next gaming laptop will be a desktop
2. My next laptop will not have a Nvidia graphics card
3. Onsite warranty (preferentially global) or no deal

And that's were the ThinkPad X1 comes in. I've actually pulled the trigger, loved the machine but had to return it after finding out that I couldn't fit a ANSI keyboard in my European model. Now I'm planing a trip to Canada so that I can buy the same machine with the right keyboard layout (and global onsite warranty) . Can't wait to put the whole P650HS chapter behind me.

 

sorry to hear about the P650

 

Thanks mate. No worries, I'm turning the page . Let's forget the past and talk about the future. I wonder if anyone tested the 500 nits monitor with the newest Insiders Build. As I understand it, with the insiders build it is possible to test HDR support (not sure about Dolby Vision).

 

On 1709 non-insider, the HDR option is present.

 

If anyone else gets a X1C please test it. I'm really curious.

 

I don't have one btw. Just mentioning the fact that it's on my T430's windows 10 installation.

 

Another quick question about something I forgot to test by myself. There are two Thunderbolt 3 Ports in the X1C. Lenovo is advertising "speeds up to 40 Gbps" leading me to believe that they are using 4 PCIe lanes for TB3. Can anyone confirm if the TB3 Controller attached to 4 PCIe lanes? I've heard that the T480 only uses 2 lanes..

 

The X1 Carbon 6th Gen has Thunderbolt 3 with PCIe x4 speed, though only if you use one Thunderbolt port. If you use two, then the bandwidth is shared and goes down to x2 speed.

As a general rule: All machines with two Thunderbolt 3 ports have them attached to 4 PCIe lanes, while most (not all, but most) models with only one Thunderbolt 3 port can only offer x2 speed on Thunderbolt.

In the current Lenovo ThinkPad lineup, only the following machines offer Thunderbolt 3 with x4 speed:

• X1 Carbon 6
• X1 Yoga 3
• X1 Tablet 3
• P51
• P71

All other Thunderbolt-equipped models have Thunderbolt 3 with x2 speed. This includes all of the T series as well as the X280, X380 Yoga and P52s.

 

Thanks @ibmthink. So that's another plus point of the X1C agains't the T480. I wonder if anyone had already benchmarked the X1C with an eGPU... I've heard that the new Quad-Core 8th Gen "U" series CPUs are doing way better than their Kaby Lake counterparts and found some impressive benchmarks of the Dell XPS 9370 and HP x360 13t.

The X1C 5th Gen was somewhat CPU and temp constrained, but with a 8th Gen CPU and new throttle limits I wonder how well the X1C 6th Gen performs with an external enclosure.

 

T480 using 2 lane is just penny pinching imo.

Let the customers have 4x, wouldn't mind paying the difference on all configurations.

 

It is penny pinching, but there also may be a technical reason, at least on models with dGPUs, as those models don't have enough PCIe lanes left for Thunderbolt 3 PCIe x4.

Still, even if that wasn't the case, they would probably use x2 PCIe, because the T480 is considered more of a value option. T480s is higher priced, so that might be possible (if it had enough PCIe langes).

Next year the situation will change anyway though, as Icelake is supposed to support Thunderbolt 3 natively – I guess that means x4 Thunderbolt everywhere.

 

I'm not defending Lenovo on this one (considering that even Razer managed a 4 PCIe lane TB3 single port setup) but I guess that in the end it's always a trade-off between upgradability and performance. The i7-8550u has only 12 PCIe lanes available. The T480 can have a GPU, Fast M.2. Storage, several network components, etc. I know that they oversubscribe and offload most of the slower PCI stuff to the MOBO Lanes anyway but PCIe arrangement is one tough decision that I wouldn't like to be responsible for as an engineer. Just look at the amount of threads around the forum asking about installing a second super fast PCIe M.2 SSD, etc (probably can't do it with the T480 as well, sorry). In the end I think that their decision making process was around the lines of: "How many TB3 peripherals will actually be constrained by the bandwidth? Very few? We'll lets save a few quid per machine and avoid the design headaches".

Unfortunately those "few" devices are exactly the ones that actually have a reason to use TB3 connectivity .

 

:|

 

I predict that Apple will expose a x4 TB3 on their state-of-art single USB-C port 2019 Macbook Pro. You will be able to choose between using an eGPU, the charger, a headphone (with a $100 USB-C to audio Jacket adapter) or a mouse. Razer will release a entire line of 4 million DPI / 3Ghz mice and people will complain about the lack of support for x16 Thunderbolt 4.

 

Pretty OT but the X280 is now available as a CTO in the US/CA website.

Please whoever who decides to buy this, spend the extra money to get the FHD screen.

 

A nice review of the X1C 6th Gen:

Spoiler

100% coverage of what colour space again?
Oh... All of them

 

I really wonder if this will work with the T420S/T430S WQHD board.

 

You mean the 500 nit display? That's a good question.

 

Correct me if I'm wrong but don't you need HDR content for the HDR display to take effect? an HDR display isn't going to automatically convert everything on the screen to HDR. I think you need to watch Netflix or something to fully take advantage. So this is just a really nice color gamut, 500 nit screen - which is still good puts it on par with the Macbook Pro for the best IPS displays on the market.

 

Besides most 4k UHD Blu-ray discs, HD10 / Dolby Vision and HD10+ content is starting to pop-up on Amazon, Netflix, Hulu and even Youtube. The problem is that up until recently Windows 10 itself didn't support HDR so I couldn't really test it. Honestly, even my TV only supports HDR10 for now (I did cast some 4k HDR content using my Nvidia Shield and it really looks amazing).

So, answering your question: Yes, HDR is an emerging market (AFAIK Lenovo is pioneering Dolby Vision displays on the laptop), but no, this is not just a 500 nit screen. The content and support is slowly but surely coming to the PC.